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Vestas wins order to repossess plant

August 4, 2009

Judge backs wind turbine firm as Isle of Wight protests spread to second factory in row over green jobs

The owners of a wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight won a repossession order today in their attempt to end an occupation of the plant by workers protesting at planned job losses.

A judge at Newport county court granted the order after environmental activists staged a protest at a second wind turbine factory on the island as part of a campaign to save hundreds of jobs in the green energy sector.

A barrister for the original group of 11 protesting workers told the court the order had not been properly served, but the judge, Graham White, granted it.

A notice of eviction will now be sent informing the workers of when bailiffs will arrive. Typically a few days notice is given.

Peter Kruse, a spokesman for Vestas, suggested the eviction would not take place today. “We are in no hurry,” he said. “We are as patient as we have been all the way. We will remain patient optimists hoping for a peaceful solution in the interests of all the parties, particularly including the people inside.”

After the court hearing, a group of about 200 supporters marched to the plant on the St Cross industrial estate where they were greeted with cheers from the occupying workers on the balcony. Gathered outside the building they chanted: “We fight on.”

One of the workers inside spoke to the assembled crowd, calling for national days of action on Saturday and Wednesday when other workers in the country should down tools or hold a rally to support them.

“We want the protest to continue,” he said. “But we want it to remain peaceful. This place has a future and we shall not give up on that.”

Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT union, who was in court for today’s hearing, said the union would continue with its campaign to save the jobs. “The court has made its decision, but we will continue with our campaign and the right to work on green energy jobs,” he said.

Crow attacked both Vestas and the government, saying ministers had been “despicable” in failing even to meet the workers or the union to discuss the possibility of other work going to the factory.

The campaigners at the second protest occupied the roof of the Vestas Wind Systems factory in Cowes, vowing to stay there until the sacked Newport group were reinstated.

Three activists could be seen on the roof of the Cowes building, which faces the waterfront. A fourth protester appeared to be abseiling from the roof to attach a banner that read: “Vestas Workers – Solidarity in Occupation. Save Green Jobs.” He waved to ferry passengers in the harbour, who whistled back from the boat.

Speaking before the verdict, the Newport workers said their morale had been boosted by the sit-in at Cowes. Ian Terry, one of the 11, said: “It is good to know that others are willing to stand up and fight for green jobs.”

The Cowes factory was occupied at 4am by a Climate Camp group and a member of the RMT union. The protest was timed to coincide with Cowes week, the annual sailing regatta. The activists issued a statement saying tens of thousands of people were visiting the island for an event celebrating the natural power of wind.

“At the same time,” they said, “workers at Vestas are struggling to keep Britain’s only wind turbine blade manufacturer open. Factories in Cowes, Newport and Southampton are being closed with the loss of over 600 jobs, as well as many more in support industries.”

The group criticised Vestas for leaving employees “high and dry” and accused the company of paying “peanuts” in redundancy settlements and leaving workers with little hope of finding other jobs on the island.

One of the group said: “We are staying here until everyone is reinstated and the closure decision is reversed.”

Yesterday, climate change activists were arrested after gluing themselves together outside the headquarters of the Department of Energy and Climate Change in London in support of the sit-in workers. The protesters, who held up banners saying “Take back the wind power”, blockaded the main entrance to the building for several hours before they were detained.

The Trades Union Congress general secretary, Brendan Barber, urged Vestas to rethink its closure decision. He said: “Ed Miliband [the climate change secretary] has proved himself to be a champion of the green agenda and the drive to create new jobs. Now we are asking him to go the extra mile for the 600 workers and the production facility – the only one of its size in Britain – which is vital to building our low-carbon future. Everything must be done to look for positive alternatives.”

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Obama’s green credentials tested by battle against mountaintop mining

August 4, 2009

James Hansen and Darryl Hannah among those opposing open-cast coal extraction that destroys mountains and forests

It is still technically possible to see the original white paint of Larry Gibson’s pick-up truck beneath the myriad of stickers declaring his love of West Virginia’s mountains and his opposition to coal mining.

But it would be a mistake to see the truck as mere conveyance. This is a mobile command centre in Gibson’s one-man 25-year war against King Coal and the highly destructive mining method known as mountaintop removal.

Windscreen-mounted video camera in working order? Check. CB Radio on to listen for miners arriving for their shifts? Check. Luminous green t-shirt and cap for maximum visibility? Check. And Gibson, who is about five feet tall and in his 60s is usually armed, like many people in this part of West Virginia.

“The mountains in West Virginia are the oldest in the world and now they are gone in the blink of an eye,” he said. “I am the man who is holding the fort down here. I am the man holding them back.”

Mountaintop removal begins with the clear-cutting of entire forests and then the shearing off up to 1,000 vertical feet of mountain peak. This exposes thin seams of coal that cannot easily be reached by underground tunnels.

Some 500 mountaintops across West Virginia, Virginia and Kentucky have already been replaced by dry flat plateau, and 1,200 mountain streams have been buried beneath dumped rock and dirt. By 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than 2,200 square miles of Appalachian forest will disappear.

At some sites, the mining companies try to rebuild the silhouette of the old mountain, or replant. But mostly they leave the mountain missing its crest. In any event, nothing ever grows on the land again, locals say.

Kayford Mountain, or what Gibson calls his home place, is one of the frontline positions in an epic confrontation between the coal industry and a broad coalition of local activists, environmental organisations, national figures and Hollywood celebrities.

The struggle against mountaintop removal is also proving an uncomfortable test of Barack Obama’s green credentials.

The US administration has frustrated environmentalists who had relied on the president to ban a practice that devastates landscapes and uproots hundreds of local communities.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the environmental lawyer and son of the assassinated presidential candidate, recently accused Obama of presiding over an “Appalachian apocalypse”.

James Hansen, the Nasa scientist who coined the term global warming and who has become a passionate supporter of Gibson, demanded activists hold the president to account. “We can not continue to give President Obama a pass on this much longer,” Hansen said.

Now Obama could be upstaged by the Senate which has taken up a bill to ban mountaintop removal by prohibiting mining companies from dumping debris in streams. The bill has support from Republicans as well as Democrats.

The bill is too late for Gibson’s beloved Kayford Mountain. A short stroll from his campsite brings visitors to a view that looks like something out of a science fiction film. Giant trucks crawl over the earth on a vast yellow plateau below; at 5.10pm there is a loud blast.

“It looks to me like descriptions of places that got bombed in Hiroshima ,” said Lora Webb, who lives in the nearly abandoned town of Twilight, which is surrounded by mountaintop mining. “It looks like what I would imagine if I was going to imagine what hell would look like: dry, dusty, no air or water.”

Webb is about to leave Twilight herself, exhausted by blasts so forceful they have blown her out of her bed and on to the floor, shattered her glassware collection , and left a thick coating of dust on her ceiling fan.

Emerging scientific scientific evidence now suggests even more extensive damage from mountaintop removal than previously understood, with widespread and potentially permanent damage to water systems. Former mine areas are more vulnerable to erosion than unspoiled mountainside, and are at increased risk of flash floods and mud slides.

“There is irrefutable scientific evidence that the environmental impacts of mountaintop removal are substantial and they are permanent,” Margaret Palmer, a professor at the University of Maryland’s centre for environmental science, told a recent Senate hearing .

“You can’t reverse it, at least not in any time span we can recognise as humans.”

Meanwhile, the EPA has detected high levels of the heavy metal selenium, which can cause reproductive problems in humans, downstream from mine fill sites. Government biologists also detected deformities among local fish.

“It just destroys the health of the people who live here,” said Joan Linville, who lives in the town of Van and whose home was nearly buried by a mud slide from a mined mountaintop. “One little tiny coal seam and they keep tearing up the country for miles. It’s the most destructive thing I have ever seen in the 70 years I have been alive and I have been in every state.”

Gibson’s war against coal began in the late 80s, soon after an injury forced him into early retirement from a job at General Motors in Ohio. Around the same time, mining companies began buying up locals’ small plots, and began to dynamite the peaks surrounding Kayford.

Gibson refused to sell out, and based himself on the mountain in a two-room cabin without running water or mains electricity. He persuaded his extended clan to come too.

His determination made him a hero to environmentalists. Over time, the patch of mountain has become a pilgrimage to environmental and other activists, even school groups, with Gibson’s wife handling the scheduling requests. Next month he is due in court with the actress Daryl Hannah to face charges over a protest action.

But Gibson also has powerful opponents. Almost half of America’s electricity comes from coal, and mining companies say mountaintop removal is cheaper and more efficient than tunnelling underground.

In Washington, industry lobbyists claim that locals welcome mountaintop removal — for its development potential.

“I can take you to places in eastern Kentucky where community services were hampered because of a lack of flat space — to build factories, to build hospitals, even to build schools,” said Joe Lucas of Americans for Clean Coal Electricity. “In many places, mountain-top mining, if done responsibly, allows for land to be developed for community space.”

Coal mining no longer fuels West Virginia, accounting for just 7% of the economy: there are more jobs at Wal-Mart than on the coal face. But while the number of mining jobs has shrunk from a high of 150,000 to just 12,000 over the decades, the scarcity of other employment still leaves plenty of locals threatened by Gibson’s crusade.

Gibson — himself the son and grandson of miners — had his fourth of July protest picnic broken up by burly men with tattooed and shaven heads, and shots were fired at his cottage in June. “They just pulled out a gun and went pop pop pop,” he said.

Like other opponents of mountaintop removal, Gibson had been counting on Obama, with his election promises of a clean energy economy, to shift the power balance away from coal.

But those hopes evaporated in May when the EPA signed 42 permits for mountaintop removal while turning down only six — a higher ratio even than during the latter part of the George Bush presidency. Some 170 more permits are pending, according to the Sierra Club.

In June, the White House announced it would strengthen oversight of mining operations, but it refused to endorse a ban on the dumping of debris into mountain streams.

That stand has infuriated Obama’s natural allies. Gibson sees it as pure betrayal. “I think Obama’s going to fall into line like the last president we had,” he said. “He has developed into a coccoon that is going to end up not being a butterfly but a corporate president.”

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The purr of electronic gears sounds great – if you can get past the price

August 4, 2009

Shimano’s electronic gears are a radical departure from traditional mechanical gears, but I’m sticking with simplicity

The gears shift instantly and imperceptibly underneath me. For a second I can picture how wonderful it would be to have this newest of new-fangled electronic technology shifting gear with precision as I fly up the Alpe D’Huez in chase of a Tour de France yellow jersey. The image doesn’t last long, as I’m actually sitting on a turbo trainer, shoved in a corner behind a display cabinet, in a bike shop in Canary Wharf.

Evans Cycles’ London City branch is the place to try Shimano’s new Dura-Ace Di2 electronic gears for high-end road bikes – if you can prise the city boys in suits off the test machine (hooked to a resistance trainer, so no one can ride the precious technology out of the shop).

Shimano’s electronic gears are a radical departure from today’s mechanical gears. Instead of shifting gears because of a mechanical process – a rider pressing, pulling or twisting a gear shifter and sending tension down a cable – these new gears employ tiny servo-motors, triggered by buttons above the brake levers, which dance the chain across front and rear rings perfectly every time. There’s never any over or under-shifting where – respectively – your chain shifts off the chain ring or doesn’t shift far enough for the next gear. No tweaking when the gears go out of alignment: these gears automatically realign themselves. And the battery lasts at least 2,000 miles a charge, in all weather. This is state-of-the-art shifting perfection.

Best of all is the noise these gears make – halfway between a “feel my power” growl and a “vorsprung durch technik” whine of mechanical precision. It certainly helps sell these breathtakingly pricey gears, much like a perfectly smooth CD eject mechanism could sell a hi-fi in the 90s.

If you can get past the price – the whole Di2 package costs just under £3,000 – there’s another problem. Like a smooth CD eject mechanism, electronic gears aren’t really necessary. Bikes have traditionally kept only what’s necessary – extra weight, price or complexity are discarded for good reason.

Most regular cyclists are capable of changing an inner tube or adjusting their gears. And even if they aren’t, shops can’t charge too much for what is clearly a simple mechanical job. Electronic gearing is another step towards the pursed lips “ooh, that’s going to cost you” car mechanic approach, where servicing requires computers as much as spanners. Don’t expect a sleepy village cycle shop to stock spare parts, either.

With high-end mountain and road bikes embracing all sorts of fancy technology – carbon fibre components, titanium frames, air shocks with rebound damping –simplicity could be so last season, anyway. Even the humble commuter bicycle is getting belt-drives and built-in solar-powered lights this year.

I’m sticking with simplicity though, for the most part: gears I can fix in the rain, with a multitool and a bit of elbow grease; a bike I can wheel into any shop when it goes wrong; and that can sit outside a pub without becoming a high-tech target.

That said, in a lunatic, pre-parenthood cycling blow-out, it wasn’t that long ago I bought a carbon fibre mountain bike with fancy forks. And the purr of electronically shifting gears does sound great …

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Scottish climate activists to target coal industry

August 3, 2009

Protesters accuse Salmond’s Scottish National party government of hypocrisy for supporting new open-cast mines and coal-fired power station

Climate activists who today occupied a new open-cast coal mine in south-west Scotland are planning to target power stations, energy companies and mines across the country, in protest against the energy policies of the first minister, Alex Salmond.

The protesters accuse Salmond’s Scottish National party government – which claims Scotland has the world’s toughest climate change policies – of hypocrisy for supporting new open-cast mines and a new coal-fired power station planned for Hunterston in Ayrshire.

Several hundred protesters are expected to converge on a “climate camp” at Mainshill near the village of Douglas in South Lanarkshire, an area already dominated by large open-cast mines, despite a court order prohibiting their occupation.

Activists at the Mainshill solidarity camp – which was officially opened today – have erected more than a dozen “tree houses” and platforms, dug tunnels and built teepees in a large conifer forest, which is due to be cleared for the new mine.

Environment activists have been protesting at the site since it was approved in June and have already had confrontations with police and the landowner, the Earl of Home, son of the Conservative prime minister Alec Douglas-Home.

But today there was no sign of any police or security guards. Instead, the protesters were building compost toilets, showers, temporary offices and barricades, and preparing for the police to attempt an eviction.

Activists have also identified Longannet power station, further mines, Scottish Coal and Scottish Power’s headquarters and coal terminals on the Clyde and Firth of Forth for future protests.

Scottish Coal, now the UK’s largest open-cast coal mine operator, was given permission to extract 1.7m tonnes of coal at Mainshill over the next three and a half years. About 700 villagers in nearby Douglas and Glespin objected to the proposal, but their complaints were rejected by South Lanarkshire council.

Scottish Coal already operates three other mines in the immediate area, and has recently won permission to extend many of them.

At Glentaggart, the company is allowed to mine 200,000 tonnes a year: the site has one of the Europe’s longest conveyor belts. At 6.5km long, Scottish Coal says it reduced lorry traffic by 30,000 journeys a year.

At a site known as Poniel/Long Plantation, it can mine 570,000 tonnes ,

and 4m tonnes from Broken Cross open-cast mine, several miles to the north-east.

The protesters say these mines undermine the Scottish government’s targets to cut CO2 emissions by 42% by 2020 – a legally binding target that ministers claim is the strictest of any industrialised nation.

Scotland already has 32% of its domestic electricity needs met by wind power, and claims it will surpass 50% by 2020. Ministers have also matched the UK government’s goal of cutting emissions by 80% by 2050.

However, Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, also supports plans for a new coal-fired power station near to Hunterston nuclear power station and has supported reopening Longannet coal mine in Fife.

He insists that carbon capture and storage – where CO2 emissions from power stations are pumped under the North Sea – will absorb the extra greenhouse gas emissions. He has described coal as “a fuel of the future.”

A Scottish government spokesman said: “We are working to develop clean coal and carbon capture technology and, alongside a massive increase in renewables, coal still has a place as part of a balanced energy policy for Scotland.”

Rob Banks, a spokesman for Mainshill climate camp, said carbon capture is still an unproven, experimental technology and could take up to a decade to be installed in power stations. It could also be used to help extract North Sea oil and gas – negating its use in reducing CO2 emissions from power stations.

“We don’t have any faith at all that that 42% climate change target will be maintained,” he said. “Road expansion is continuing unabated, they’re extending various airports and expanding open-cast mines. That doesn’t indicate they’re taking this seriously.”

Many locals supported the protesters, said Harry Thompson, who chairs Douglas community council, and wanted the open-cast mines to be dramatically scaled back. Salmond’s stance on open-cast mining “makes a complete mockery” of his climate policies and Scottish planning law.

“We realise the coal is there and we realise they’re going to take it, but we want it done one at a time, in a manner that would be safer and healthier for the community,” he said.

A Scottish Coal spokesman said coal was a significant resource, and essential for the UK’s energy supplies. The firm also supported carbon capture and storage. “Scottish Coal remains committed to maximising the use of indigenous coal, to support Scottish jobs and the Scottish economy, and reduce the need to import coal from foreign sources, which carried greater environmental costs,” he said.

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Week in wildlife

August 2, 2009

From ladybirds to ‘bald’ birds: the pick of this week’s images from the natural world

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The all-new Toyota Prius – silence of the lanes

July 31, 2009

Green cars have been branded overpriced, sluggish and ugly. Today, the most famous eco-car, the Toyota Prius, enters its third generation. Will the cleaner hybrid tempt buyers? Novelist Toby Litt took a test drive

I drove it down to Brighton, because it seemed a very Brighton sort of car – a hybrid vehicle for a transition town. I was expecting it to receive admiration, affirmation, perhaps even sly congratulation. But did it get envying sideways looks from cyclists? Thumbs up from Green activists? Tranced out nods from dog-on-string trustafarians?

No, not really. In fact, it was much better at passing unnoticed, particularly at passing unheard. When running only on its self-recharging battery, the thing is virtually soundless. (I usually drive a P-reg Audi A4, the cassette-player in which – when rewinding – is louder than the Prius.)

And so, while trailing a bearded, grey-haired man for about a minute down one of Brighton’s narrow lanes – him in the middle of the road and blithely unaware of the 5-door hatchback breathing down his neck – I had a realisation: the Prius might just be the best car ever for playing What’s the Time, Mr Wolf?

Once I realised this, there was a great temptation to spend the next half-hour sneaking up on crusties and giving them a friendly bump in the tattooed calves. But this would, of course, be foolish, dangerous and, most of all mischievous. And there’s not a smidgeon of any of these qualities about the Prius. It’s sensible, safe and – you might almost say – puritanical. This is a car that doesn’t just go, it also makes a stand. Driving it made me feel slightly chastened, as if I had my old RE teacher in the back seat.

Over and above a fuel-saving “Eco Mode”, you can put the Prius into EV (Electric Vehicle) Mode, where it stops being hybrid and runs entirely on its battery. This only lasts for a couple of miles before it reverts to mere Eco, but if you do anything even mildly aggressive – get up to entry velocity on a busy roundabout, say – the display will, more in sadness than anger, tell you” “EV Mode has been turned off due to excessive speed.”

I was almost surprised it didn’t follow this up with, “Hey, compadre, why don’t you just take a chill pill?” When I first turned the radio on, it had been set to Smooth FM. The advice sheet on “better driving” in the glove compartment perplexingly but characteristically read: “When driving at high speed, drive at a moderate and constant speed.” Okay, I get the point.

But it is this very moderation that is the Prius’s unique selling point. The car gently forces you to drive in an environmentally responsible way, and that means you don’t have to feel so guilty about the fact you are transporting yourself to buy a pack of decaf tea from Tesco’s in three tonnes of hi-tech metal. And products like this, ones we buy knowing they will gently force us to mend our ecocidal ways, are being marketed as the future – the future that tries to preserve the future of the future.

Although its looks are distinctive (a bit like a snowglobe-on-wheels that’s been semi-flattened, aerodynamicised and had an aerofoil added on the back), the Toyota Prius isn’t as much a statement here as in the US.

There, the “Pious Prius” has become a symbol of white-collar eco-smugness. You can join the Facebook group “I hate the Toyota Prius, and the liberal tree-huggers that drive them!” You can laugh at parody advertisements – one of which shows a man dragging a bagged up, weighed down corpse from the car’s trunk towards a lake above the slogan, “Well, at least he drives a Prius.” In California, it seems, you can attack them with rocks or by ramming them with less fuel-efficient cars, with impunity.

All of which seems to show how threatened some people feel by anything that appears unthreatening.

With more than 1m units sold, the Prius really is silently creeping up on American – and world – car culture.

It is, whisper it, a very sensible vehicle. A lot of intelligence has gone into its design. For example, the mph and SatNav arrows are displayed, by reflection, in the lower part of the driver’s side windscreen – in plain view but not obtrusive. The question it poses, though, is whether sensible, unobtrusive, intelligent measures can save us as we plunge down the steep slope the other side of peak oil. As for me, I’ve seen the future, and it walks.

• Blog: What Prius geeks think of the new model

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What’s the environmental impact of a sky lantern?

July 31, 2009

They may be beautiful as they drift off into the night, but the party could soon be over for sky lanterns

I am getting married next year and when going to buy so-called 100% biodegradable “sky lanterns” I have been disgusted to find that they contain metal wires which obviously take years to degrade. Beautiful and fairly cheap they may be, but I for one will not allow even the possibility of harming animals to come from my wedding, and I strongly believe that others will feel the same – if they have the knowledge.

Saffron Light, by email

Less of a question, more of a statement, but I take your point, Saffron. I, too, have wondered about what happens to these sky lanterns once their brief blaze of glory begins to fade and they fall back to the ground. They are, indeed, a fairly splendid sight as they drift away into the night sky. But, as with the release of helium-filled balloons at a charity event, they must fall back to earth somewhere resulting in – at the very least – an eyesore for someone to clean up.

The claim made by some of the sky lantern retailers about their products being “biodegradable” is certainly worth exploring. If these paper lanterns did, indeed, rot away within a matter of days, then they might possibly claim to be environmentally benign. But, as you point out, they contain a thin metal wire support.

I rang one of the UK’s leading online sky lantern retailers and asked its sales representative to put some flesh on this “biodegradable” claim. He said that the paper biodegrades within “six to eight weeks”, and claimed that the “flourished wire” take nine months, on average, to break down.

How did he know this? “The manufacturers did some tests. But the wire is only eight inches long and accounts for just 1% of the lantern’s mass.”

Who are the manufacturers? “I don’t know. They used to be in Thailand, but I think we get them from Japan now.”

This answer intrigued me, because on the company’s website it says that all its products are “sourced ethically” and that it “operates a fair trade agreement with our manufacturers”. This led me to assume that it must have a very close relationship with its suppliers, so why the confusion about where the sky lanterns are sourced? I asked what this “fair trade” claim meant.

“Some of our competitors pay under the minimum wage in these countries. We ensure that we pay a fair wage.” But such statements are next to meaningless without any form of proof or certification.

I came away from the conversation with far more concerns and questions than I entered it. For example, why should the claim that the wire takes nine months to break down be presented as a means of reassurance? Wire lying on the ground for nine months is surely a considerable hazard, depending on where it lands, for farm animals or children. And can metal wire really break down so quickly? I’m always digging up old bits of wire fencing in my garden (formerly a field) which must have been there for years, if not decades.

Back in April, a farmer who runs a wedding venue in the Staffordshire Moorlands banned the use of sky lanterns on his land due to similar concerns (thanks to the Guardian user Yamaman for a link that led me to the story). Mick Heath of Heaton House farm told the North Staffordshire and South Cheshire Sentinel: “Brides and grooms ask if they can let them off, but they do not understand that the wire in them takes ages to break down. He added:

If it gets wrapped up in hay bales it would be like swallowing razor blades for farm animals and if it falls into grassland it will kill wildlife. These lanterns are advertised very heavily in bridal magazines. Brides and grooms can see the attraction, but not the danger … One of our cows bled to death internally after eating shards of a discarded drink can. I want to do all I can to avoid any animal suffering like that again.

Margaret Heath, Mr Heath’s wife, expressed an additional concern: “There is also the danger that if they come down alight they could start a fire on the moorlands, a fire in a tinder-dry cornfield or even someone’s house. We really do not know where they are going to come down.”

Sky lanterns have long been a tradition in east Asia. You only have to look at this footage of a sky lantern festival in Chiang Mai in Thailand to see how popular they are – and how potentially dangerous they can be when lit en mass.

But the party could be coming to an end. Last week, the Vietnamese prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, announced that a sky lantern ban would take effect from mid-September, says a report by VOV News:

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, almost 20 forest fires have been caused by burning sky lanterns since the beginning of the year. In Hanoi alone, there have been eight fires in workshops, electrical stations and houses caused by sky lanterns. Sky lanterns that fell on power stations in the capital were also blamed for causing power blackouts, during Lunar New Year’s Eve earlier this year.

In Thailand, too, some local authorities are now starting to ban the sale of sky lanterns ahead of major festivals.

And closer to home, three German states have now banned the sale of the lanterns following the death of a 10-year-old boy in a house fire caused by a sky lantern in North Rhine-Westphalia. Even the UK coastguard is now starting to express concern about the site of these lanterns drifting out to see and mimicking the sight of distress flares.

I doubt it will be too long before a ban is considered here in the UK.

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Chinese to launch first ever green lawsuit against government

July 31, 2009

‘Breakthrough’ hailed as Chinese judge says residents may prosecute government over pollution claims

China should see its first lawsuit by an environmental group against authorities within weeks, state media reported today.

A member of the All-China Environmental Federation – which is backed by the central government – said a judge in Guizhou province had accepted its claim on behalf of residents who complain they have suffered from pollution.

Residents allege that the Qingzhen land resources bureau leased land to a drinks factory in 1994, but construction of the factory has not been completed and they believe the site is damaging two adjacent lakes from which they draw drinking water. They want the government to take back the land and remove construction materials.

Ma Yong, director of the legal service centre at the federation, told the Associated Press the case would open in early September.

“The case will serve as a warning for government departments and companies that damage the environment, as we’re stepping up efforts to play a supervisory role,” Ma Yong said. He added that he hoped it would pave the way for other organisations to file public-interest lawsuits.

Liu Haiying, deputy head of the environmental protection tribunal at Qingzhen municipal people’s court, told China Daily: “We are established to safeguard public interest and hope to encourage other courts to step forward to handle similar cases.”

She added: “No matter what the conclusion is, we hope it will serve as a warning to government departments such as environment, forestry and other agencies, that they should always fulfill their duty to protect the environment.

“They need to gradually realise that they are not only under the supervision of the party and other administrative departments, but also under the watch of all citizens.”

Environmental activists complain that courts usually turn away such cases.

”If this leads to more non-governmental organisations bringing public interest litigation I think this is a very important breakthrough. It means China is going to open the door to more public involvement in environmental enforcement,” said Alex Wang, a senior lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a US environmental group.

In a separate development, China is to shift a planned £3bn oil refinery and petrochemical plant in the south after years of public outcry.

Wang Yang, the Communist Party chief of Guangdong, said the province would move the plant – a joint venture between China’s Sinopec and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation – because of opposition from the community and officials.

“We only have one planet to live on, so whatever we do on this end will affect others on the other end,” Wang told reporters at a news conference on Thursday.

“The decision by the government shows that they do consider the opinions from different stakeholders across the region, which is a positive sign,” said Edward Chan, a Greenpeace campaign manager based in Hong Kong.

“Our worries now are that the residents [in the new area] are not as well-educated or informed, or may be more eager to look for economic development.

“The story has not ended. It’s really important for green groups to pay attention to where the project is moving to.”

It is thought the factory will be relocated away from Nansha to Zhanjiang in western Guangdong, a less ecologically sensitive area.

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Golden eagle tagged in conservation plan found poisoned to death

July 31, 2009

Alma, a golden eagle tracked on conservationist website, vanished in early July and was found poisoned to death today

Police raided a Highland grouse moor today after a golden eagle that had been satellite-tagged as part of a government-funded project was found poisoned with illegal pesticides.

The grouse moor, keepers’ cottages and vehicles on the Millden estate near Brechin in Angus were searched under warrant after Tayside police and wildlife crime investigators raided the property early this morning. There were no arrests, and no one from the estate was available for comment.

The estate is run by Nick Baikie, a grouse moor manager who was previously employed by Mark Osborne, an Oxfordshire-based chartered surveyor. Grouse moors run by Osborne in Scotland and England have previously been raided by police investigating alleged wildlife crime offences.

The bird, known to conservationists as Alma, was a young female golden eagle whose daily movements had been tracked on the website of one of Scotland’s leading conservationists, Roy Dennis, as it flew over the Cairngorms.

The daily records on Dennis’s website ended on 2 July, the second anniversary of its tagging in 2007 on the Glenfeshie estate in the Highlands, as part of a long-term study into their behaviour and breeding.

Alma had flown up to 130 miles from her eyrie in the Cairngorms national park, reaching as far north as Loch Maree in Wester Ross. She was found dead in deep heather, with her adult plumage beginning to appear from under her moulting juvenile feathers, Dennis said.

“We’re just terribly, terribly disappointed,” he said. “It’s just tragic because, as the months went by this bird became more and more interesting. Hundreds of people had been following her, and she is nationally known. It just beggars belief that she has been poisoned.

“It’s difficult enough to be an eagle anyway, but to have this extra burden is just appalling. I’m in favour of hunting but it has to be done ecologically and ethically, and this is totally unacceptable.”

Superintendent Ewen West, of Tayside police, said: ”The golden eagle was part of a project being undertaken by Scottish National Heritage. The bird was being continuously tracked and when her movements came to an abrupt stop at the beginning of July suspicions were raised that she had died. Sadly, she had been illegally poisoned.”

Golden eagles may be deliberately targeted by gamekeepers who want to stop any birds of prey eating grouse or pheasant, but the species normally fall prey to poisoned baits which are laid out on sporting estates to kill other birds of prey, including hen harriers, white-tailed eagles and buzzards.

Roseanna Cunningham, the Scottish environment minister, said: “I am truly appalled that yet another golden eagle has been illegally killed in Scotland – the second this summer. Illegal poisoning is simply inexcusable and while the perpetrators are certainly beneath contempt they are in no way above the law.

“Poisoning of course poses serious animal welfare risks, but these offences also damage Scotland’s tourism industry our economy and can even tarnish the reputations of those working in our countryside within the law.

“The fact this eagle was tagged and the Scottish public were actively engaged in its progress, only makes this case all the more galling. The loss of this magnificent animal is a real blow to Scotland, particularly as we are renowned world-wide for our incredible wildlife.”

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Climate change deniers claim they’re censored. What hypocrites

July 31, 2009

Anthony Watts, sceptic and scourge of climate change science, has used copyright laws to censor an opponent

One of the allegations made repeatedly by climate change deniers is that they are being censored. There’s just one problem with this claim: they have yet to produce a single valid example. On the other hand, there are hundreds of examples of direct attempts to censor climate scientists.

Most were the work of the Bush administration. In 2007 the Union of Concerned Scientists collated 435 instances of political interference in the work of climate researchers in the US.

Scientists working for the government were pressured by officials to remove the words “climate change” and “global warming” from their publications; their reports were edited to change the meaning of their findings, others never saw the light of day. Scientists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Fish and Wildlife Service were forbidden to speak to the media; James Hansen at Nasa was told by public relations officials that there would be “dire consequences” if he continued to call for big cuts in greenhouse gases.

Philip Cooney, a senior White House aide who previously worked at the American Petroleum Institute, admitted to Congress that he had made hundreds of changes to government reports about climate change on behalf of the Bush government.

Among other changes, he had struck out evidence that glaciers were retreating and inserted phrases suggesting that there was serious scientific doubt about global warming. In the UK, both Viscount Monckton and Martin Durkin, the director of Channel 4′s The Great Global Warming Swindle, have threatened to sue people who have criticised the claims they’ve made about the science.

Where, on the other hand, is a single verifiable instance of a climate denier being silenced by the authorities? They have yet to produce one. But it suits them to cry wolf. They love to imagine that they are important enough to censor. The claim chimes with their paranoid invocation of a great conspiracy – involving most of the world’s scientists, most of the world’s governments, most of the world’s media and a few hundred million others – to suppress the truth about global warming.

Now we have another marvellous instance of this hypocrisy. Anthony Watts spends much of his time maligning climate scientists and environmentalists on his blog Wattsupwiththat. But while he can dole it out, he can’t take it. As Kevin Grandia of desmogblog shows, Watts has just used US copyright laws to take down a YouTube video which exposes his claims. Grandia has since reposted the video (see above) so you can see for yourself what all the fuss is about.

It is not clear how his copyright was infringed by the video, but the US laws have been widely used by other people to block material that they don’t like. Websites are obliged to remove any video which is subject to a takedown request, and they can put it back up only if they win an appeal. I charge Watts with the accusation he unjustly levels at other people: this looks to me like an attempt to silence his critics.

monbiot.com

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